Like many Marquette students, I had a lot of questions upon receiving the following email on Thursday afternoon from President Michael J. Lovell and Provost Daniel J. Myers:
"Dear members of the Marquette community,
As the president and provost of Marquette University, we are writing to inform you that earlier today, we presented a resolution to the Board of Trustees to rescind the honorary degree granted to Bill Cosby in 2013. The Board approved that resolution, and the degree is rescinded immediately. Over the past several weeks, we’ve had extensive conversations with campus leaders and faculty members who showed overwhelming support for the action our board took today.
By his own admission, Mr. Cosby engaged in behaviors that go entirely against our university’s mission and the Guiding Values we have worked so hard to instill on our campus.
Every day, we live these values by challenging our students to integrate knowledge and faith into their real-life decisions in ways that will shape their lives.
With those values in mind, let us all remember that the foundations on which our great university was built remain as important today as ever."
In rescinding Cosby's degree, Marquette joined Fordham (who announced their revocation this week as well), Temple (his alma mater), Central State University and Spelman College as colleges that have distanced themselves from the comedian.
My biggest question was "why now?," nearly a year after the infamous Hannibal Buress set that went viral and brought nearly decade-old allegations back to light. Nearly two months after 35 of Cosby's accusers appeared on the cover of New York Magazine and shared their stories.
I remember being excited to see Cosby's commencement speech in 2013 via webcast. When he was introduced, Cosby interrupted his formal introduction in a way that would have been perceived as rude if anyone else did it, but for some reason we all laughed anyway because it was Bill Cosby. I watched the man I'd come to know and love from comedy bits and "Fat Albert" drone on blissfully in his Marquette sweatsuit, telling various stories and jokes but hardly ever driving to any meaningful points. It was less of a speech and more of a comedy set about graduating.
One of the few points Cosby did stress was integrity, a word that many people probably question whether Cosby ever knew the definition of just over a year later. A word that Cosby mentioned three times in his speech, each time rather ironically ending his point on the word, and transitioning to a joke quickly after.
Marquette did what they had to do by rescinding Cosby's honorary degree. His continued possession of it would have belittled the prestige of the honor, and called into question the standards and values of the university. The timing however went well past "thoroughly reviewing the circumstances" to "borderline negligence" for a university that has made sexual assault awareness and resources a point of emphasis over the last year.
In his Marquette commencement speech, Cosby told an anecdote of when his mother passed away and left him $48,000 in her will "so that he may have something to fall back on."
Cosby then said that he prayed to his mother, who had long lived on her son's exorbitant wealth, saying, "Mother, it's going to be a long fall."
For Cosby, that story has become less of a joke and more of an eerie prophecy.
